Enforcement of Mine Safety Seen Slipping Under Bush (Knight Ridder )

[G_j]

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0107-06.htm

Published on Saturday, January 7, 2006 by Knight Ridder

Enforcement of Mine Safety Seen Slipping Under Bush
by Seth Borenstein, Linda J. Johnson and Lee Mueller

WASHINGTON - Since the Bush administration took office in 2001, it has been more lenient toward mining companies facing serious safety violations, issuing fewer and smaller major fines and collecting less than half of the money that violators owed, a Knight Ridder Newspapers investigation has found.

At one point last year, the Mine Safety and Health Administration fined a coal company a scant $440 for a "significant and substantial" violation that ended in the death of a Kentucky man. The firm, International Coal Group Inc., is the same company that owns the Sago mine in West Virginia, where 12 workers died earlier this week.

The $440 fine remains unpaid.

Relaxed mine safety enforcement is widespread, according to a Knight Ridder analysis of federal records and interviews with former and current federal safety officials, even though deaths and injuries from mining accidents have hovered near record low levels in the past few years.

The analysis shows: ..more..

[DoYouEverWonder]

1. I remember hearing that Poppy and Babs had been investing

a lot of money in the WV coal mining industry.

[oasis]

3. Why should Bab's "beautiful mind" be occupied with the fate of coalminers?

:shrug:

[NanceGreggs]

2. Why bother?

"Enforcement of Mine Safety Seen Slipping Under Bush"

That's not news - that's stating the obvious. After what we've seen happen to environmental protections, the lax laws governing everything from pharmaceuticals to food inspection, who would have expected anything different.

"Bush Does Something Right!" Now, THAT would be a HEADLINE that would grab the world's attention.

[Demit]

4. Let's be grateful that a news organization is reporting it at all.

"...Regardless of who does the inspections, former agency officials say the marching orders on enforcement changed with the Bush administration.

"Right off the bat, when they came in they said we want to focus more on partnerships, alliances, working together with industry," said Celeste Montforton, who was special assistant to the MSHA chief for six years through December 2001. "They did feel there was too much of a focus on enforcement."

Tony Oppegard, a Lexington, Ky., lawyer who was a top MSHA official during the Clinton administration and later general counsel for the Kentucky Department of Mines and Minerals, said there are problems with that philosophy.

"The philosophy is all coal operators are good guys and if you just tell them what to do, they'll be more than willing to do it and they'll do a good job," he said. "We know from history that's not true. Not all coal operators are good guys. There are some outlaws out there. And when you have an outlaw operator, you need to use your enforcement tools."...



That's bringing information to people, even if it's "obvious" to you. Knight-Ridder is doing a good job.

[Marie26]

5. They are

I can't believe w/all the 24-hour coverage CNN is giving this, no one is asking why this tragedy occurred. It's good that at least the print media is looking more in-depth into this issue.

[Petrushka]

9. Has any news agency mentioned anything about how . . .

. . . weak coal regulations and lax law enforcement endanger communities as well as miners?

According to the coalfield citizens watchdog group, Coal River Mountain Watch: "Weak coal regulations and lax law enforcement threaten miners and the people living nearby. The death of three-year-old Jeremy Davidson is an example of the coal industry's low regard for people. The deaths of a dozen people in floods made worse by mountaintop removal mining is another. (emphasis added)

"Three-year-old Jeremy Davidson was crushed in his bed on August 20, 2004, when a bulldozer operator pushed a boulder from a mountaintop removal haul road above the boy's home near Appalachia, Va. State regulators fined A & G Coal only $15,000, the maximum allowable under then-existing laws. The company appealed the fine.

"At least 12 people were killed in West Virginia floods in 1997, 2001, and 2002. An environmental impact statement (EIS) begun by the EPA in 1998 shows that deforestation, leveling of mountains, and filling of streams and valleys increase runoff and contribute to floods. In 2001, under the directions of former industry lobbyist and Bush appointee J. Steven Griles, the EPA changed the EIS focus to streamline and accelerate mountaintop removal permits.

"'I hope Governor Joe Manchin follows through on his promise to fully investigate the Sago mine disaster,' said Bo Webb of Naoma W. Va. 'In July, he promised to fully investigate citizens' concerns for the safety of children at Marsh Fork Elementary School,' Webb added. 'But so far, there has been no air analysis at the school and no health survey of the children, and the Department of Environmental Protection tells him the seeping sludge dam is normal.' Marsh Fork Elementary sits 220 feet from a Massey Energy coal silo and 400 years downstream from a 2.8 billion-gallon toxic waste sludge dam.

"MSHA has cited the dam for safety violations 19 times since January 1995, with four of the violations considered 'significant and substantial.' MSHA fined Massey Energy $2,447 for the violations. MSHA inspection reports have also shown the dam to be seeping over widespread areas. In 1972, a failed waste dam killed 125 people in Buffalo Creek, W. Va. In 2000, a Massey sludge impoundment in Martin County, Ky., burst into underground mine shafts, coating lawns with several feet of sludge and polluting 75 miles of streams. The MSHA investigation was rushed with the new administration, and proposed MSHA fines were reduced to $5,600.

"'All Americans pay for their supposedly cheap electricity through tax incentives to the coal industry and FEMA assistance for flooded communities," said Hillary Hosta of Rock Creek, W. Va. 'But, as we've seen time and time again, Appalachian people pay for it with their lives.'" (emphasis added)

From a January 5th press release I received by e-mail from Coal River Mountain Watch. If you have any questions, CRMW contacts are: Vernon Haltom or Hillary Hosta 304-854-2181

Edited to note where I added emphasis/bolding.

[NanceGreggs]

10. I wasn't referring to the coverage ...

... I was simply referring to the headline, stating that yet again, Bush and this Administration have failed in their responsibilities.

There's no need to tell us THAT - we can assume that if there's a fuck-up anywhere, the path will inevitably lead back to pResident Shrug.

[FlaGranny]

6. I can give the

neocon argument about mine regulation: We don't need it. Mines should be able to regulate themselves. If they do not and if a mining disaster happens where miners are killed, it was the miners' own fault because they CHOSE to work in a dangerous situation. In fact there are one or two people on this board that I would expect a similar argument from.

[ladjf]

8. That is their argument. But, America can do better than this

for their working people.

[Petrushka]

12. Hm-m. Did you say, . .

"...their working people."?



Shouldn't that be "our working people."?


Hm-m.

[FlaGranny]

13. ? Maybe he's not in the US? n/t

[Petrushka]

14. In which case . . .

. . . shouldn't that have been "...for their own people."?

:-)

[ladjf]

16. Your insinuation that by my choice of words you have discovered

that I'm not an American is mind boggling. You have carried political paranoia to a new level.

I'm a 70 yr. old Mississippian, sick about what the fascist big businesses have done to OUR Country.
Please don't waste any more of our time by deciding that I'm some sort of lurking fascist or meddling foreigner.

My choice of the word "their" instead of "our" in no way indicated my nationality.

[ladjf]

7. Worse than "slipping". It's disappearing.

[lumpy]

11. kick

nt

[greiner3]

15. At this rate;

There will be no personal freedom left. All power will be in the hands of big business and the government... Wait, it already is! :sarcasm: